Ferrari F1 History

On February the 18th 1898 Enzo Ferrari was born in Modena. After being forced to leave school after the death of his father, he went on to work in the Modeno Fire Brigades workshop as a turning instructor. After serving his country in World War I, in 1918 he started to work as a test driver in Turin. He soon moved to Milan to work for CMN (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali) as a racing driver and a test driver. In 1919 he made his racing debut in the Parma - Berceto race, later that year he also entered the Taraga Florio race. 1920 saw Enzo move to the racing team Alfa Romeo, at this team he formed a strong relationship which lasted over 20 years, his career progressed from a test driver to a race driver to a sales assistant and he eventually he was to be the Director of the Alfa Racing Division until 1939.

Scuderia Ferrari were founded in Modeno in 1929, the main purpose this company was to organize racing for its members. This was the beginning of a strong involvement in motor racing, this led to the creation of the official racing team and the Scuderia was to become a division of Alfa Romeo, Scuderia Ferrari took overall control of the racing team in 1933. 1940 saw the end of the Scuderia's connection with Alfa Romeo, the company then went on to establish itself as an independent organization to be called "Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari" the company worked for the national Aviation Company in Rome.
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Welcome to the Ferrari story as told by coolrunnings, At the age of 10 Enzo Ferrari attended Coppa Florio, a car race held in Bologna, Italy. That was in1908 and according to his autobiography "My terrible joys" after that event he was pretty much sure of his life occupation. Next crucial moment in times before Scuderia comes after WW I, when Enzo got turned down by Fiat and was only with the help of a friend Ugo Sivocci that he managed to find employment. The company’s name was CMN, and Enzo was working as a test driver. In those days that meant, that you were supposed to enter as many road races as possible, and of course try and win some of them without getting killed.After several years at CMN Enzo switched to mother of Italian autosport, the fabulous Alfa Romeo. According to his recollection, the pinnacle of his racing driver career was a stunning win with Alfa voiturette at Coppa Acerbo race in Pescara, when he took 1st place in front of two Mercedes cars that have won that years prestigious Targa Florio race (1924).

In 1929 Enzo formed Scuderia Ferrari, a private enterprise to race Alfa Romeos. The Scuderia (roughly translated - a stable, but in such a context-team) quickly started winning races and became the sports branch of Alfa with legends such as Tazio Nuvolari, Giussepe Farina, Achille Varzi behind the wheel of little Alfas. The late 30ties saw an onslaught of government backed Mercedes and Auto Union but Scuderia Ferrari managed a memorable victory in German backyard at Nurburgring in 1935 with Nuvolari behind the wheel.1938 saw Enzos break up with Alfa, and in 1939 Enzo puts to racing first 2 Ferraris, Tipo’s 815(8 cylinder, 1.5liter eng.).
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In 1972 Enzo Ferrari's dream of a dedicated test track was realised with the building of the Fiorano track close to the factory at Maranello. The tracks main purpose is to test the latest F1 and GT racing cars, the team mechanics also use the track to practice the events of a race-simulated pit stop.

The layout of the track is typical to that of a regular road. It has a tortuosity index of 1.24, with 1,661 meters of bends and 1,339 meters of straight. The length of the standard course is 3,000 meters, extended to 3,021 meters by the new chicane built in 1992. The average speed for the course is over 160 km/h, with peaks of more than 290 km/h.

The amount of straight road and bends was designed to solve specific problems: a balance between right and left bends, bends with a differentiated radius, from 13.71 to 370 meters; bends with different features having one or more centres. Although convinced that it was impossible to repeat bends typical of other racetracks, the designers did try to include elements that resembled the salient features of some European courses. Bend no. 1 is used to assess car behaviour when braking hard. Bends 2 and 9 (sharp bends to left and right) to verify brakes when turning into the bend and engine elasticity when leaving it.
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